BOSTON — If the Connecticut Sun don’t want pressure to move to Boston, they might want to stop playing games at TD Garden.
New England’s only WNBA team played its second annual game in the Massachusetts capital on Tuesday night in front of an energetic sold-out crowd.
It was a good night for Boston. The city lived up to its reputation as a great sports town. Canal Street’s bars were crowded on a Tuesday night, while fans took part in a pregame block party hours before tipoff.
Other than a fourth-quarter injury to Caitlin Clark, it was a good night for the WNBA, which had a sold-out crowd of 19,156 fans on national TV.
But it had to be an uncomfortable night for the Mohegan Tribe, which has owned the Sun since 2003. The success of the event only amplified the growing chorus of voices saying Boston should be the Sun’s permanent home, not just a one-night host.
It wasn’t just fans and media. With varying degrees of subtlety, players on both teams and even the governor of Massachusetts called for a WNBA team in Boston, either by expansion or relocation.
Sun rookie Saniya Rivers was direct.
“If it was up to me, we might relocate here,” Rivers said after shootaround at TD Garden. “It’s a great city, has great food, great shops. … I think it does a lot for women’s basketball in general to get some noise around here. Get people supporting women’s basketball. Hopefully, maybe they can advocate for us to, maybe even relocate.”
Sophie Cunningham, who became the WNBA’s most famous urban critic earlier this month for slamming the league’s expansion choices of Detroit and Cleveland, raved about playing in Massachusetts.
“I like Boston,” she said. “Y’all need to get a team here.”
Indiana’s Aliyah Boston, who went to high school in Worcester, backed up her belief in the region’s appetite for women’s sports by investing in Boston Legacy FC, the soccer team that will begin play in the NWSL next year. She thinks the city would be an ideal WNBA home.
“When you look at the atmosphere for the Celtics and the atmosphere for the two TD Garden games that we’ve had,” she said. “It’s been sold out. It’s been energetic. The atmosphere has been great. I think that’s going to be the same all the time.”
Massachusetts Governor and former Harvard basketball player Maura Healey tiptoed around the idea of poaching the Sun, when she declared Tuesday WNBA Day in Massachusetts. But, in her official proclamation, she called for the league to put a franchise in Boston. It read:
“Whereas, Boston is New England’s capitol and hub, and would be the perfect place for a WNBA team, and we are so proud to host our neighboring Connecticut Sun.”
Fever coach Stephanie White, who coached the Sun for two years, was more diplomatic before the game. She praised the Sun’s tribal ownership, but it wasn’t hard to read into her statement.
“Everything is changing, and so being able to not just keep up, but have the foresight to see what’s coming, I think it’s important to evaluate, … what you’re able to do to position the franchise for future success,” she said.
Boston is now 2-for-2 selling out Sun games. It would obviously be harder to sell out 20 games a season, but they don’t have to. A half-full TD Garden still represents more fans than Mohegan Sun’s capacity of just under 9,000. And the Sun isn’t selling that out every night.
The reality is that the WNBA isn’t in small cities anymore. And Uncasville, Connecticut is tiny. Mohegan Sun is over 40 miles from Hartford, 50 miles from Providence and either of those would still be the smallest market the league has.
From a basketball standpoint, the team has been incredibly well run and still star players have forced their way out to more attractive locations.
At least publicly, the Mohegan Tribe is resisting the idea of moving or giving up control of the team. But it is working with investment bank Allen and Company. The tribe says they’re doing that in hopes of adding minority shareholders. That might be true, but it could also be a quiet way to start the wheels in motion for a sale.
Boston native actor Donnie Wahlberg and former NBA player Michael Carter-Williams lead a group exploring bringing a team to the city. And they likely wouldn’t be the only interested potential buyers.
The Mohegan Tribe would be smart to engage or consider running the team themselves in Boston. Teams around the league are investing in facilities and amenities. The Sun are already behind and likely to fall further so.
The league has outgrown Mohegan Sun. Boston should have had a WNBA team a long time ago.
This talk isn’t going away.
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